Henri Rousseau’s fondness for unresolved scenarios may explain why he became important to the Surrealists. “Rousseau is not so much a storyteller as a story-giver,” notes curator Christopher Green.

Must read: @adambroomberg.bsky.social writes about Israel’s plan to artwash genocide at the Venice Biennale: “This is the danger of the liberal Zionist position. It offers the language of conscience and dialogue while absolving itself of engagement or responsibility.”

Sometimes it takes a book to remind us of how all-encompassing art can be. Our favorite reads this month include a history of Parisian artist hub Montmartre, a colorful monograph by Yankunytjatjara artist Kaylene Whiskey, and more.

The Department of Justice placed a black square over an image of the Mona Lisa in the Epstein files. As the DOJ faces accusations of releasing sensitive victim information, the decision to cover the world’s most famous portrait feels particularly misguided.

The National Gallery of Art in Washington, DC, acquired Artemisia Gentileschi’s “Mary Magdalene in Ecstasy.” It’s the first work by the Italian Baroque artist to enter the institution’s collection.

Passionate about art (and its intersections)? Hyperallergic is hiring for several roles on our Editorial and Publishing teams. If you want to work in independent media, we’d love to meet you. buff.ly/kPh13gC

“When we invite visitors into our museums, we must resist the pull to simply commemorate and instead communicate the relevance of our history. We must not smooth over conflicts.” –Ken Weine, Senior Vice President, New York Historical

Why are we so obsessed with the Epstein files? Because they’ve stopped being about just one pedophile and have come to symbolize the depravity of the world’s richest elites. It’s no surprise that the art world is implicated, but another way is possible.

Would a Caravaggio really stand out in a room of lesser-known contemporaries? A visit to the Morgan Library suggests: Yes.

How are we to understand Surrealism’s adventures into the unconscious without learning about its origins in André Breton’s work as a doctor treating traumatized World War I veterans?

Why did Fra Angelico, a Dominican friar who took a vow of poverty, go to such great lengths to incorporate marble and stone into so much of his art? Understanding the secret mystical meanings that monks ascribed to crystals can change perceptions of several paintings.

David Ross of SVA has resigned from his post following the release of his email exchanges with Jeffrey Epstein. In January 2015, years after Epstein’s conviction, the former museum leader told him that he was “still proud” to call him a friend.

Born deaf on an Idaho farm on the eve of the 20th century and isolated from the art world his entire life, James Castle seemed to have arrived independently at some of the most radical tenets of mid-century abstraction.

What do you call the artistic technique that creates contrasts of light and dark? Find out in the Renaissance edition of The Art Crossword!

This is a good day to share my 2018 essay on the Obama portraits and the history of African American portraiture. hyperallergic.com/obama-portra...

If art institutions want to stand with people whose lives have been upended by detention and deportation, their solidarity has to show up as time, protection, and material support that outlasts a social media post.

Infinite love abounds in Dyani White Hawk’s solo exhibition at the Walker Art Center, imbuing a space rarely afforded to local creators with a deeply rooted Indigenous perspective.

The attempts to prevent South African artist Gabrielle Goliath’s work from reaching a global platform at the Venice Biennale are not the result of incompetence or poor strategizing. The machinations of neo-imperial states are made malleable for the purposes of silencing dissent.

Refusing to complicate Grandma Moses’s legacy flattens it. More profound truths can be uncovered within her work to debunk harmful mythologies endemic to the US, while still upholding the magnitude of her achievement as one of the most famous and delightful American artists.

Many assume getting into the Whitney Biennial is an endorsement of quality, which can further an artist’s career. But your art needs to speak to the biennial curators and align with cultural interests. Often, the work selected has a kind of buzz around it that is impossible to engineer.

Biographer Sue Roe’s portraits of her subjects — six women who loved Picasso — are not entirely about them. They are, ultimately, about the artist himself: the love-bombing creature of conquest and control.

In Memoriam honors those we recently lost in the art world. This week, we remember the Irish colorist Richard Gorman, Senegalese sculptor Seyni Awa Camara, and Florida Highwaymen Willie “Bill” Reagan and Robert L. Lewis, Jr., among other greats.

Sandra Vásquez de la Horra’s recycled motifs don’t congeal into symbols so much as demonstrate how everything is connected. Hers is an ecofeminism rooted in the porous, reciprocal entanglements of the body and the world that made it.

The motivating query behind “Plastics,” an art conservation anthology by Anne Gunnison and David Joselit, is simple: What do we learn about plastics when seen through the lens of art? The answers are complex.

Photography in the Black Arts Movement at the Getty, Arshile Gorky at Hauser & Wirth West Hollywood, and Steven Arnold at Del Vaz Projects are just some of the shows we’re seeing in Los Angeles this spring.

Artist Julia Fish slows time down by homing in on a manifestation of its presence, transforming the act of looking into an intricate modality that visualizes the interplay of geometry and architecture, prismatic light and musical notes.

Ekow Eshun will curate the 13th SITE SANTA FE International Biennial, Mnuchin Gallery is closing, Chelsea Bighorn won the Walker Youngbird Foundation’s 2026 Emerging Native Arts Grant, and more news from the art world in this week’s Art Movements.

I wrote about the Epstein files and what it teaches us about the rot in the art world.

Palestinian residents in the Occupied West Bank village of Sebastia have expressed outrage at Israel’s plan to seize the town and neighboring archaeological site as part of a plan convert the area into a tourist attraction for Jewish settlers.

Artist Deborah Jack disrupts any viewer’s impulse to find recreational soothing in the ocean’s tidal landscape, as she openly critiques the legitimacy of cartography, empire, and ecological adaptation.

Minneapolis artists are employing the full power of their creativity and community to fight against the ICE invasion of their city, and their message is loud and clear: Get the hell out.

After a disastrous rebrand and internal turmoil, the Philadelphia Museum of Art decided to return to its old name. Farewell, “PhAM,” we hardly knew ye!

The Washington Post has laid off Pulitzer Prize-winning art critic Sebastian Smee and made sweeping employee cuts across its Arts section in what’s been described as a “bloodbath” at the Jeff Bezos-owned paper.

Yoko Ono is truly one of the world’s most generous artists. By including the viewer as a participatory component of her work, she has consistently framed collective hope amid a cultural backdrop of war, violence, racism, and sexism, each of which has touched her personally.

The latest tranche of Epstein files includes detailed descriptions of alleged abuse by private equity billionaire and MoMA trustee Leon Black. The museum has not publicly acknowledged the allegations and did not immediately respond to Hyperallergic’s comment for this article.

In our present age, when we seem forced to repeat the horrors of last century, it feels improbable that a survival kit should reach us in the form of modernism itself. Yet Claude Cahun’s “Cancelled Confessions (Or Disavowals),” first published in 1930, offers a counter-arsenal of dreams.

Photographer Ingrid Hernández has long trained her lens on Tijuana's squatter settlements. Within them, she finds narratives about a place where great wealth collides with great poverty, and Mexico with the U.S. I write all about it for @hyperallergic.com: hyperallergic.com/ingrid-herna...

There’s a reason “archival practice” has become such a popular concept in recent years, but writer Vinh Phu Pham argues that the conversation too often stops there.

With “Native Son,” Richard Wright ignited a fire in American literature. One of the most influential writers of the 20th century, he inspired many, including the artist John Wilson, who would go on to use Wright’s words in his prints and paintings.

Nona Faustine and Ocean Vuong at the Center for Photography in Woodstock, Vito Acconci at Vassar, and Sita Gómez’s retrospective at Hudson Hall are just some of the shows we’re seeing in Upstate New York this month.

Eugène Atget, one of photography’s major figures for almost a century now, would have languished in obscurity if it weren’t for Berenice Abbott, who rescued his archive after his death.

Philadelphia’s art community is mourning the death of Roberta Fallon, artist and co-founder of the digital publication Artblog. “Roberta remained optimistic. She saw an art world that was better than the real one, and she gave us an alternative history,” said art writer Annette Monnier.

David A. Ross, chair of the MFA art practice program at SVA, has resigned following the latest release of Epstein files. Emails reveal that the two discussed an exhibition about “girls and boys ages 14–25,” which Epstein suggested titling “Statutory.”

“You can’t think your way through a painting,” says the artist Michael Berryhill. “You can only act, mark, or feel your way through.”

Insisting on union elections runs counter to museums’ stated values. The choice to do so maintains structural exclusions and exposes the hypocrisies of art museums, spaces we trust with preserving and ensuring access to our shared cultural heritage.

David Ross of SVA has resigned from his post following release of his email exchanges with Epstein. In January 2015, years after Epstein’s conviction, the former museum leader told him that he was “still proud” to call him a friend. by @surrhealism.bsky.social & @isafarfan.bsky.social

Hyperallergic Opportunities is a monthly list of residencies, grants, open calls, and jobs for artists and creatives seeking funding and community support to further their work.

Italian officials are at odds over a restored fresco in a Roman chapel following accusations that one of the repainted cherubs was intentionally modeled after far-right Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni.

Pull open the heavy gold door of an Upper East Side townhouse, step inside “one of the slowest elevators on the planet,” and enter the one-room, dark-wood Rodder gallery to find yourself in the strange oasis of James Castle’s art.

The only notable thing about the Melania Trump documentary is the backlash against it: Protesters dressed up like Marie Antoinette and held a rally outside the film’s premiere at the Kennedy Center, “Let them eat cake” signs and all.